A protest rally on Tuesday in Mangalore against the rape of the medical student. (PTI)

Bangalore, June 27: Three suspects in the Manipal gang-rape case were arrested today in the middle of alleged suicide attempts by two, the breakthrough apparently made possible by a “catch-me-alive-if-you-can” call to police by one of the accused.

The case, in which an MBBS student of Manipal University’s Kasturba Medical College Hospital was abducted and raped, had provoked a snowballing confrontation between the people and the administration because no arrests were made for nearly a week.

Auto driver Yogesh Shantappa Poojary, who purportedly called an inspector-general of police on his cellphone and confessed, consumed poison but was picked up on time from a thicket in Manipal.

Based on information gleaned from Yogesh, another auto driver and alleged accomplice Hariprasad Poojary alias Harish was arrested soon after from Manipal.

Anand, the third accused, was spotted and rescued by villagers while he was trying to hang himself from a roadside tree in Badagubettu in Udupi.

Yogesh, 30, had been arrested earlier on assault charges and Hariprasad, 27, for gambling. Nothing much is known about Anand, reported to be a close friend of the two and said to be from Goa.

It was not immediately clear if Anand had travelled to Goa and returned to Udupi, separated by less than six hours away by road, to end his life.

Sources said it was also possible that he might have come to know of Yogesh’s call to the police and subsequent arrest and had attempted suicide in fear.

Yogesh had called up inspector-general (western range) Pratap Reddy to tell him that he would not allow anyone to catch him.

“Around 10am, I got a call from an unknown number on my mobile. There was this guy who said: ‘I’ve made a mistake and I’m responsible for the crime. I know you will try to get me; but I will not allow that’,” said Reddy, who heads the investigation.

After Yogesh hung up, the police traced the location of the call to an area away from Manipal’s main roads. They took local help to track Yogesh, who was lying in a place covered by bushes. “With the help of the locals, we found the man. He was by then showing the effects of the poison he had consumed,” said Reddy.

Yogesh was rushed to Manipal Hospital (Kasturba Medical College Hospital) — where the victim studied and which had announced a reward of Rs 3 lakh for information on the culprits. The girl is undergoing treatment in the same hospital now.

After Yogesh was out of danger, the police questioned him. Hariprasad was then arrested. Anand was picked up late in the evening and admitted to the same hospital, police sources said.

Two hundred policemen were divided into 11 teams to mount a manhunt and the police had announced a reward of Rs 2 lakh.

But it was a police parade of Manipal’s history-sheeters that had provided the first clue. While all the listed history-sheeters responded to the call, Yogesh stayed away.

A known rowdy in Manipal, his absence at the parade was noted. From that moment on, Yogesh was on the police radar, sources said.

Yogesh and his companions have been accused of kidnapping the 22-year-old girl who was heading to her rented flat from the college library on the night of June 20. The girl from Kerala was living in the flat, less than a kilometre away from the campus, with other students of the institution.

Contesting an earlier version that the girl was raped at an isolated building in Eshwarnagar, Hariprasad said the crime was committed in a deserted open area in Madaga.

Both places are in Manipal, a town renowned for educational institutions with 27 campuses and a student population of around 21,000. Manipal is around 420km from Bangalore, and 65km from the port city of Mangalore.

One CCTV image shows the girl being dumped near the Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, part of the Kasturba Medical College complex, around 2.45am on June 21, almost four hours later.

Police sources said Hariprasad had told them that Yogesh had sexually assaulted the girl and he did not do so.

He is also said to have claimed that the abduction and rape had not been planned and that they were drunk when they dragged the girl into an autorickshaw. Hariprasad said he drove the vehicle but he was not around when Yogesh dropped the girl back.

The ownership of the vehicle has not been confirmed yet. It was seized from Hariprasad’s house and had apparently not been on the road since the incident.

In Bangalore, chief minister P.C. Siddaramiah said the accused would be tried in fast-track courts that would be launched soon. He said CCTV cameras and police teams would be deployed on all campuses in the state.

IGP Reddy said the police were hoping to get a statement from the girl. “There are many legal procedures to ensure justice to the victim. We need to bring the victim for identification and verify the crime spot,” he said.